At this very moment, Lord Chen Guoguo's aura surged like a storm, filled with murderous intent and the weight of absolute majesty. To be honest, a mortal could not even begin to compare with him. Anyone who wielded a world item like the Gravity Ball—Chen Guoguo himself—was already closer to godhood than human. Mortals, ordinary men… mere insects before him.
So these so-called ancient gods, whispered about in legends, could not scare him—not even a little. If such a god existed in reality, then fine. Let them appear. Let him use the Gravity Ball, unleash its full power, and slaughter this ancient being. Let him etch the feat into history: Chen Guoguo, the man who killed a god.
"True courage, far beyond that of ordinary men," one general murmured in admiration, a rare note of awe in his voice.
"Ha! Ancient gods? Ridiculous. Probably just a monster, nothing worth mentioning," another officer scoffed, waving dismissively.
"Exactly. Our army exceeds millions. Our territory spans hundreds of millions of miles. A single ancient god? Laughable."
"Yes, if it dares appear, we'll see. Death will follow it, nothing more."
"Haha… if it appears, maybe—just maybe—we have the chance to kill a god ourselves," whispered yet another, excitement and ambition tinged with something darker.
"To be honest, I've killed countless men, countless beasts. But a god… never. I wonder… I really want to see one."
"Bah, gods are nonsense. Folktales for peasants," muttered someone else, brushing off fear like a bothersome fly.
In the grand hall, the discussion continued. Officials and generals laughed, ridiculed, debated. Gods? Ancient gods? Such things had no place in their world. Since the establishment of this land, ten thousand years ago, no one had ever glimpsed one. To them, gods were relics of myths, long dead, irrelevant. There was no reason to believe the forbidden land of the gods had spat out one of these so-called immortals.
And yet…
"Lord!" A soldier came rushing into the hall, panic written on every inch of his face. His uniform flapped, breath ragged, voice breaking with terror: "An ancient god… outside… there's… there's an ancient god!"
Primordial gods…
The words echoed like a hammer strike, and the laughter and scorn of the ministers and generals froze mid-air. Moments ago, they had mocked the concept, debated it as if it were a story to entertain children. And now—now, the reality hit. Fast. Immediate. Unquestionable.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
Before they could even react, they spilled out of the palace doors, running toward the outer square. The ground seemed to quake beneath them. And then, the sight stopped them cold.
A giant—no, an ancient god—loomed before the city, a creature so immense it seemed to devour the horizon.
"This… this…" Lord Chen Guoguo's voice faltered. His hands clenched, unclenched. The legs beneath him felt weak, trembling involuntarily. Fear—a pure, primal, unadulterated fear—seized the depths of his pupils.
It was massive. Incomprehensibly massive. The kind of size that broke every scale of measurement they had ever known. One toe could dwarf the city wall, each knee lost in clouds, face hidden in the heavens themselves. Height? Ten thousand feet? A laughable understatement. Even that number could not convey the enormity, the sheer presence.
One palm, it seemed, could flatten the capital. One step… crush armies. Strength, power, strategy… all meaningless before this titan. They were pale, insignificant, like ants facing a storm.
Ancient gods. Undeniably. Unquestionably.
Chen Guoguo and his closest advisors quivered. No word was spoken. No command given. Even the bravest among them—those who had once shouted boldly about killing gods—stood silent, their voices swallowed by awe and terror. They saw now what it meant to be a god, the vast gap that separated human might from divine existence. A lifetime of effort, the lives of millions… irrelevant, insignificant.
And then… it spoke.
"Blasphemy… damn it!"
The sound was not a voice in the usual sense, but a roar. Thunder from nine heavens, reverberating through every nerve, every living being in the capital. The very air trembled. It was anger, pure and raw, forged in millennia beyond comprehension.
Four simple words. Spoken. Judgement pronounced. No debate. No argument. No chance for reprieve.
The ancient god moved—or maybe did not move, it was impossible to tell. It radiated power, omnipotent, inexhaustible. Then, from somewhere within its immense form, an artifact emerged, glowing faintly. It released something—a force, a substance.
Boom!
A surge of white mist exploded outward, engulfing the capital in an instant. At first glance, it seemed ordinary fog. But no… this was something far worse. Ice mist, crystalline, deadly. Liquid nitrogen.
In the human world, a mundane tool, used to make ice cream or preserve materials. But in this miniature world, it was apocalyptic.
The frost spread with impossible speed. Ground, walls, houses… frozen. Streets, trees, animals, humans—entirely encapsulated by the cold, immobilized before comprehension could even grasp the event.
Absolute zero. The temperature dropped instantly. Not gradually. Not slowly. No one could react in time. Buildings cracked, water froze midair, animals stiffened, people could barely move. A single breath might crystallize in the air.
The capital of the Chen Kingdom, once alive with banners, drums, and the laughter of victory… now a frozen wasteland. Ice, endless ice, stretching to the horizon, glittering with the eerie sheen of inevitability.
Chen Guoguo's army, millions strong, faltered. Weapons locked in ice. Horses frozen mid-stride. Towers crystallized, walls cracking under the cold. The city, the pride of the Chen state, transformed into a monument of paralysis, a testament to power beyond their understanding.
Chen Guoguo himself, normally unshakable, felt a rare chill grip him—not merely of body, but of spirit. The Gravity Ball, his world item, his symbol of invincibility… trembled faintly at the raw presence of the god before him. Even he, the master of mortal and divine force alike, could not ignore it.
The generals, the ministers, the officials—all watched in terror. Conversations ceased. Laughter, arrogance, and bravado vanished, replaced with a single thought: survival. Every plan, every strategy, every scheme was instantly irrelevant. Only this… this living force, this god, mattered.
The mist continued to spread, faster than any human could run, covering the outer gates, the fields beyond, the mountains in the distance. Rivers froze mid-flow, the sky seemed to shimmer with the aurora of the god's power. And still, the figure remained, colossal, unmoved, eternal in its presence.
Chen Guoguo clenched his fists. A god… not a rumor, not a legend, not a tale. Real. Here. Alive. Immovable.
And yet… the hint of a smile tugged at his lips, faint but deliberate. This was no ordinary god. If it were, he, Chen Guoguo, would still find a way. The Gravity Ball had never failed. Mortal or god, it did not matter. He had tamed the impossible before. And he would do so again.
But for now… for now, he allowed himself to tremble. Witness. Understand. Adapt. Even a god had patterns, even a god had limits. And Chen Guoguo would find them.
The capital, frozen, silent, crystalline… waited. The soldiers, trembling, watched. And the ancient god, colossal beyond measure, surveyed its domain. Liquid nitrogen, absolute zero, endless ice… a warning, a display, a prelude.
The game had shifted. The stakes were no longer human, nor merely mortal. The universe itself, the laws of life and death… bent, twisted, reshaped in the hands—or paws, or claws—of a being beyond reckoning.
And in the shadow of this god, Chen Guoguo, master of the Gravity Ball, gritted his teeth.
Not defeated. Not yet.
But for the first time, he understood… the true meaning of a god.